Selected Auburn IAC Success Stories

Customer Discovery

In 2014, IAC launched a customer discovery program modelled after the NSF I-Corps program. With this process, instead of trying to find licensees for an invention, we interviewed potential customers to determine who -- if anyone -- would actually be willing to purchase such a product. Several concepts did not fair well, and were subsequently tabled. Two others, however, excelled. The information acquired helped to get both licensed in less than 12 months after completion of the program. Both products, the Drumbelt and the Tape Measure Anchor, were being actively marketed as of the end of 2015.

HaloPure BR® Water Disinfection

It is estimated that over one billion people do not have access to clean drinking water, with an estimated two million people dying from waterborne diseases every year. A low-cost, effective system for point-of-use water disinfection could dramatically change this public health problem.

Halosource, Inc., is providing such a solution in the form of Halopure BR®. Based on n-halamine technology invented by Dr. Dave Worley of Chemistry, cartridges are being sold in India, China and Brazil that can expand the availability of safe drinking water in these developing countries. Halosource received its first EPA registration for Halopure BR® in March of 2009, and went public on the London Stock Exchange in October of 2010.

CytoViva™ Ultra Resolution Imaging™

A light microscope adaptor using technology invented by Dr. Vitaly Vodyanoy of the College of Veterinary Medicine provides far higher resolution than current top-of-the-line research microscopes. The technology enables researchers to observe living cells in extremely fine detail without the time consuming or invasive sample processing steps which are typical of current high-technology microscopes. Additional benefits include enhanced fluorescence & hyperspectral imaging capabilities and utility in the nanotechnology and materials industries.

Introduced to the market in late 2004, CytoViva continues to be actively sold into numerous markets. CytoViva was won several major national awards: R&D Magazine'stop 100 most technologically significant products introduced in 2006 AND 2007 and the Nano 50 Award by NASA Tech Briefs, which recognizes the most exceptional new products in the nanotechnology field.

Animal Feed Test Kits

Most countries have agreed that eliminating the previously common practice of adding ruminant (e.g., cattle, sheep) by-product meal to cattle feed is the most important firewall in preventing the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease). The FDA banned this practice in 1997.

Using antibodies invented by Dr. Peggy Hseih, formerly of the College of Human Sciences, kits are now commercially available that can detect the presence of ruminant tissues in rendered meat and bone meals and animal feeds. Two complimentary kit types are available from two different companies: Neogen Corporation's field-ready Reveal™ test strips and ELISA Technologies' 96-sample MELISA-TEK™ assays for more rigorous laboratory testing.

Junk TrunkTM

The McWhorter School of Building Science and the School of Industrial + Graphic Design participated in a multi-year collaborative effort dubbed Studio + Build. Students devised new product concepts to help solve problems in the construction industry. Some of those projects were done in collaboration with Knaack, and were focused on improving the designs of "gang boxes" -- large workboxes to be used by multiple people at a construction site. Nickolas Madsen and a team of students, along with professors Paul Holley, Mike Thompson and Tsailu Liu, developed designs that were incorporated into Knaack's 4830-D Jobsite Chest with Junk Trunk, introduced to the marketplace in 2013.